WE R CREATION ITSELF 🌅

3.24

I feel called to create when the spirits guide me, when my insides are exploding with energy that needs an outlet, when I feel beautiful and comfortable in myself enough to trust where art takes me. It was not always this way.

        

        My journey with art must have started in elementary school classes, yet I only remember being embarrassed by not having skill ( as a child though? How could i mess up, i'm not sure) and then feeling like I overdid it on every project. I work fast, speedy, and thus would finish the assignment and then add layers and layers on top without knowing when to stop. I remember I would fill a whole paper with marker doodles, it looking as manic as my brain gets sometimes. Yet even then, it was an outlet, an expression, a representation of my brain working so fast I did not know what to do with it.

I also remember starting to draw with my grandma in her old address book, where she doodled a cat (my favorite) and cute lil flowers. That inspired me to continue to fill the address book, with no goals or expectations of what it would be or how it would be used, yet just enjoying the pretty pictures and putting color anywhere I could. My relationship with color is one of the oldest I have; even though I was shy and liked to stay unnoticed, I was never afraid of color in my clothes or thru Kool-aid in my hair~ (mistakes were possibly made with these hair dye choices- yet i like to think of it as my queerness coming out at a young age. My dad said to only dye my hair ‘natural colors’ and instead i bleached it and had pink ends. It was not well done by any means but my physical being is a way to express what my emotions, my inner self, cannot put into words). Anyways, this doodling with my grandma led me to draw things, even if they were silly, and showed me how pastimes could be more than playing outside or sports or school.

That same phase where I dyed my hair wildly was one of my most vulnerable points in growing up~ I was cyber schooled in SEVENTH GRADE at the age of TWELVE and stayed home everyday with only my BROTHER at the time-these words are emphasized bc you can guess the emotional height I was at as a soon-to-be teenager, trapped in my body and the house with only the internet as a source of entertainment. It was more than that for me-without spending time online I would not be on twitter or tumblr or whatever other sketchy websites I was on that made me realize and see that the world was so so much bigger than I thought.

This year of cyberschool and the internet reconnected my interest in art as I began editing videos and ‘trailers’ or designing book covers for fanfics~this was once an embarrassing, kept secret of mine but now I find it amusing I was doing all these things so young. I found ~ways~ to get photoshop and free images online to make do where I could. I collaged my room with celebrity posters and redesigned it every few months to refresh my mind. I was able to settle into my creativity, but only when I was completely by myself~that way there was no fear of judgment or failure, I did things simply because I could, because I liked taking other people’s ideas and having a vision for how it could be portrayed. It is also valuable to mention I thought I could be a writer at this age, and did lil short stories and poems (until I eventually convinced myself i could not have the attention span to write a whole NOVEL so therefore that must mean I’m not a good writer. Or can’t make a “career” out of it. That same logic kept me away from pursuing so many passions).

When thinking about the future, I thought i could go into studying graphic design, until i took the neolib approach of doing something “more important” that could “make a difference”... a big fuck you to everyone who made me feel that art could not do those things, that it was not a viable future, that I was not capable of creating and expressing and sharing. I had no idea all the wonders and paths art/creativity could open up for me, yet my intuition and history continuously brought me back to it even when I did not realize. In high school I would be in the crew for theater and help design the programs and take photos of the cast; at my work in a cafe I would doodle in chalk all over the sign, or simple appreciate the beauty of food and how people connect with it; in soccer I would spend time on homemade gifts or crafts that made me appreciate the lil things I can make and do for others; at home, I made homemade cards for my family, and got into makeup and clothes (GAY!) and lived in my beautiful desk (with all its scattered, cheap, dry markers and pens, random stickers, endless resources) in my childhood room, may it rest in peace. 

For me, creativity was not just about being an artist but finding a way to live FULLY, to express myself, in a place and time where I felt so limited by my surroundings. And this path brought me to rediscovering my artistic talent in its own natural way- when Muskan and I lived together the summer after freshman year. We worked and smoked and relaxed and had fun while we could- we had a few paints, which we used to finger paint and whatnot, and we doodled in our journals and shared our thoughts and ideas. We cut our shirts and our hair as we pleased, realizing we finally, truly had the freedom to express however we could. This beginning of our artistic journey was genuine and authentic~ we made art with no purpose other than to decorate our walls and satisfy ourselves, to heal our inner children, as I am grateful to continue to do with them and others everyday now.

        Now, today, I let no limits define what my creativity can do. I make clothes (painting, designing, cutting, repurposing). I paint, draw, doodle, sketch, marker, multimedia any type of piece with whatever resources we have around (an old wrapper, cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, tape, etc.) I creative direct, take photos, model, style, edit, write. I chat, plan, laugh, cook, exist, collaborate with others <3 I put on my silly lil outfits and do my silly lil eyeliner just to feel like a mythical being whenever I step outside. My younger self would have no idea I could do so many great things, that I AM CAPABLE and I AM SUPPORTED~ and that gives me hope for what I will think in the future as I look back on life as it is now.

Now, as I do with journaling, let us end with affirmations:

Creativity is whatever u want it to be.

I know that art can be ANYTHING and ANYONE can do it with ANY skill or passion they hold; there are no limits or expectations for what can be, what is good, what is bad. Any expression of the self is worth creating, for it is you, it is your thoughts, it is your feelings, it is whatever u dream it to be. Art is a superpower, the ability to dream and make-believe and manifest, to possibly feel as if we are somewhere other than where we actually are. I can start a random line and see where it takes me, and if it ends up just being scribbles, that is more than ok. If I just want to dump some paint on a canvas and call it art, that is ok bc colors make me HAPPY and life is short (and the world is ending) so let’s just CREATE while we can!! Sharing art with others, creating it together, is not embarrassing but liberating as we hold grace 4 each other and embrace abilities rather than judging them~in that moment, there rests infinities of exploration, so many beautiful unknowns waiting to be released. If i don’t feel ‘inspiration’ that is ok, some days are meant for rest, sometimes u just use a creative tool as a release, a relaxation and nothing more. Art brings me community and community brings me art, simply in our existence, 444 its stunning what love creates.

(Art helped me love myself, all its weird quirky bits, and it can do the same 4 u if u give it a chance.)